Parents of some Boston-area newborns will have their baby's DNA analyzed as part of the first trial to explore the benefits and risks of genome sequencing in infants.

"If DNA is sort of the book of life, if it tells us a lot about our pre-disposition to diseases, a lot about our ability to metabolize drugs, wouldn't we want to know that information from the earliest possible moment?" Dr. Robert Green said.

That is the idea behind the BabySeq Project. The new five-year study of genome sequencing in newborns will map their DNA from birth. It's been done with children and adults for quite some time.

"If it's valuable to sequence a child or an adult, why not push that as early as possible?" Green said.

The $6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to Brigham and Women's and Children's hospitals in Boston will follow 480 newborns and their parents beginning in early 2014.

But this first clinical trial is not without controversy.

"Would you want to even tell a parent of a newborn if they had an adult on-set disease? Would it be fair?" one opponent questioned

Researchers said half the newborns in the study will be healthy, the other half sick.

Green likens knowing genome data to non-genetic information that's used all the time.

"We know elevated cholesterol means you're at risk for heart attack or stroke," Green said. "We know that being overweight or being a smoker means you're at risk for certain conditions, not that you're going to get it. We're actually going to explore what is the right way to integrate genomic information into the care of newborn babies and their entire future."